It's a twelve block walk. Four blocks in, I discovered that the eight-month-old Great Dane "puppy" could pull to the side so hard that the entire stroller turned around backwards. That is correct, I had a dog stronger than I am chained to my triple stroller containing my two youngest children. I chained him to the rear brake, which kept him from spinning the thing like a top but put him directly under my legs and desperate to see around one end of the stroller or the other.
He also barked the entire way, but I was prepared for that and he wore his bark collar. Which made it something like this.
BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK! whimper. BARK! whimper whimper whimper.
We straggled raggedly forward.
Two blocks from our destination, Garrett trailed his customary block behind us. Quinn screamed snottily in the triple stroller. Saige cavorted merrily on the curb of the large busy street that we had to cross without actually putting her toe into the street because then her world would end and also she wouldn't get any ice cream, but ohsoclose in order to ensure that I hyperventilated and yelled at her to stay back from the street the entire length of the block.
There wasn't a lot of traffic. Only one car was in view, driven by a thin woman with a long face and straggly gray hair. She coasted to a pleasant, helpful stop in front of the crosswalk and I smiled and gave her the distracted, polite, move along wave. Garrett still had yards of meandering and navel gazing and fuzz picking to mosey through and I had to get everyone attached to or otherwise holding the stroller and the damn dog kept lunging forward and twisting it around backward and so I had engaged the big foot brake.
I wasn't ready to cross the street is what I'm trying to tell you.
Crazy-ass helpful car lady (CAHCL) got all excited and insistent with me, waving madly out of the window of her car that I should cross the street.
Annoying because 1) don't boss me; 2) I'm the commander of this small army of little, impulse-control challenged things, lady, don't tell me how to execute street crossing maneuvers; and 3) WTF? I did the polite wave, that's the end of our street crossing interaction. But, I'm actually a nice person, in general, and I don't often get grouchy with strangers who are trying to be helpful so I smiled sort of and gave her another polite, please carry on your way, we're not ready to cross the street, wave.
I promptly turned my back to her to assail Garrett with dire threats of sad little boys who don't get ice cream if he didn't get his butt over here and hold the stroller so that we could cross the street rightfreakingnowohmygodchildyouaresoslow. Saige hold the stroller. Quinn knock it off. Hampton. Just GAH. Hampton.
I registered, vaguely, on the edge of my consciousness, that someone was yelling, and since that's never a good thing when you are in command of an army of little things on a busy street corner, I looked up. CAHCL was still there. Now her entire head and torso hung out of her car window and she yelled at me. "GO!! GO HONEY GO!!! GOOOOO!!!! GO NOW!!!
?
1) Not helpful; 2) I'm not ready; 3) now you're pissing me off; 4) are you insane? just drive away; 5) AS IF we weren't making a big enough scene already; 6) people are looking at me.
I fixed her with my sarcastic, D.C., you have got to be kidding me glare, which, I assure you is never, no matter how annoying you find the situation or the person with whom you are dealing, appropriate for the border of Idaho and I said in my "nicest" most precise, you are irritating the living hell out of me voice: "Please don't rush me; we're not ready to cross the street and it's not safe to straggle across."
Much as I love my adopted home town, at times, the natives baffle me. On the east coast, my glare alone would have earned me the finger and some choice expletives as she sped away. Then again, on the east coast, we never could have reached this point in our exchange because if she had stopped, which she would not have, someone would have gotten out of the line of 200 cars behind her to kill her by now.
Here, on the slow paced, friendly, oblivious border of Idaho, where in all of this five minute interaction, another car still had not approached in either direction on this fairly busy, four-lane road, making her behavior even more baffling to my alien sensibilities because lady, for real? It's not like this is my only chance in five hours to cross the road. She grinned even wider and nodded her head like an over eager puppy, missing my sarcasm and my death glare and my general please go away and leave me alone attitude and chortled merrily, while opening the door to her car.
CAHCL: Can I help you?
Um. Yes. Yes, you can. GO AWAY.
Me: No.
CAHCL: Oh.
Lady. No. People everywhere. No. Here's a tip, from a fairly confident mother of four small children who is stupid enough to take her pet pony on a twelve block walk to the ice cream parlor. No. I do not want you to help me. Unless you see copious quantities of blood or I lose consciousness, here's what I want from you: 1) ignore me and my entire brood no matter how much noise we are making; 2) do not judge me with your eyes, body stance, snort or other attitudinal postures; 3) don't make eye contact with the children; 4) If you do make eye contact, do it only to give me a sympathetic and encouraging smile, but keep moving at all times.
Not because I hate you or humanity or I'm evil - okay sometimes I'm evil - because I have a system. I have procedures with rules for absolutely every situation and despite appearances, I am maintaining strict order and some semblance of control until I am distracted by dealing with you.
She still didn't leave. I grabbed Garrett who was, finally, at long last, within my reach and I attached him to one side of the stroller, Saige held the other side and I turned back around to cross the street. She was still there. I cannot make this crap up. Did she have a bucket of popcorn in her lap or something? Free show at L---- and 25th! Ponies and midgets! Another vehicle had finally approached in the opposite direction and so we had to wait while that driver appropriately ignored our entire three ring circus and blew through the crosswalk without so much as a brake tap.
There. You see? That is behavior that I understand. That is the kind of individual that I structure my world around. Thank you, oblivious cranky driver, for renewing my faith in the fact that most people are completely ignoring my insanity.
Finally, we crossed the street. We took our sweet ass time, too. Because Garrett's shoe popped off of his heel and he burst into tears, the dog managed to pull the chain to the end of the metal brake bar and around the edge of the stroller so that he could tromp on Saige from behind and oh yeah, Quinn totally still screamed.
Yay! Ice cream! Fun!
The car lady rolled down her passenger window and called, "okay, have a good day," before she drove away.
I have nothing. Imagine me here with an incredulous, bewildered, sarcastic look on my face.
I pulled up, thirty minutes late, to the Scoop, sweaty and red-faced, with sobbing children and the dog.
BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK! whimper whimper.
Amy and Elise eyed me like I had drool hanging from my mouth and a guy following me around with a straight jacket and they were all, the dog, really? It's not hard enough for you to get here, you have to throw your pony into the mix?
That I can appreciate. They speak my language.
While we ate ice cream, I girded myself for the long return trek with no threat of losing ice cream to hold over my oldest children's heads. Elise shook her head and sighed. Notice how she features prominently in my parenting debacles. It might be all Elise's fault. Hypothetically.
"I'll take the dog in the back of my van."
"No. It's alright."
"Dude."
"Yeah, okay fine. Thanks."
See. That's helpful.
This post brought to you by poor decision-making skills, my magnetic attraction for crazy people and a lot of guilt about the amount of time our dog spends on his chain.
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